Natasha Jen's "Design Thinking is Bullshit" Argument

At this summer's 99U conference, Pentagram partner and designer Natasha Jen gave a presentation with an eye-catching title: "Design Thinking is Bullshit." This was actually the second time she'd given the talk—back in May Jen tweeted "Finally let it out of my system" after presenting it at HOWlive in Chicago—but video of it was never released, so few got to see it. But this month video of the 99U talk was finally made public:

What do you think? On the one hand I think Jen's correct in that distilling a complicated process into an easily-replicable formula isn't always possible, but on the other hand I see the "Design Thinking" introduction to businesses as a positive step towards fresh thinking. I had always assumed "Crit" was built into the process, but perhaps those of you with direct experience of a design-unsavvy business first attempting to integrate the process could speak to this.

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I wholeheartedly agree with Jen's assertion that design is not merely a box to be checked, and I think the idea that anyone can be a designer will of course be anathema to practicing professionals. I also support her push for evidence, and on this note, if you're not already reading Design That Matters' series of posts, you ought to be!

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If she understood "prototype, test" in Design Thinking as a linear, one-time event, i.e., one prototype, one test and you're done, then she doesn't understand Design Thinking at all.

Creative people also work in different ways. Judging one's creativity and quality of one's design based on how tidy or messy one's working environment is equally comical as critizing why it took over 1,000 prototypes to get a vacuum cleaner design right if one knows design.

As a design thinking practitioner, I tend to agree with most of what she says; however, she's not talking about design thinking, she's talking about the deviance that stem from good intent. Along the years, I found that it was really easy to "debunk" design thinking done badly, but that's not because of the "design thinking" part, rather about the "done badly". All design thinking professional would certainly not claim these processes as being linear, that's just their depiction, and if you've done the least actual practice you know that it *is* iterative, and that theses "steps" are rather modes between which one navigates. Critique is also embedded in a well mastered design thinking approach, almost at each step actually. As of the evidence, all designers use design thinking - also not many recognise it, simply because, as Jen puts it design thinking is just a way to make design (period) affordable to non-designers and replicate some of what makes designers good at what they do. So the evidence supporting design thinking are actually the very same that support design (period). Even Jen's office.

So in a nutshell: she's right, but she is chasing the wrong prey, and I can understand the frustration of an acclaimed professional seeing their field dissolve in corporate gimmickry. The real question is: how comes that design thinking standards are so low? how comes that any big consultancy can claim to use design thinking after having read a pair of books or conducted a workshop? that's the gimmickry side of design thinking. Those who know what they are doing, believe in these principles, and are successful, have the evidence.

(oh, and by the way, there also exist bad designers, but this does not mean that it makes sense to bluntly shoot at design as a whole...)

And just as a precision: "design thinking is bullshit"... yes, to designers: they don't need it because they already do it. As for the rest of the world, design thinking is helpful when done properly, but even then is no silver bullet.

From where I stand, design thinking is for non-designers to get a handle on design. I see the value in promoting inclusivity in the act of design by providing a framework for nonprofessional designers (yes, everyone is a designer). I've led several projects where the lack of post-its early in the design process has caused anxiety with clients because they don't think they are "doing design right".

I think the struggle here isn't a question about whether or not design thinking is bullshit, but how it is deployed and whether it needs to be evolved for it's purpose.

As a student I find this illuminating. Every time the term "design thinking" comes up in classes I have struggled to see how it fits with my process. It feels like a monolith, with very few entry points to reach a clear feeling of what to do in a given situation. Mostly I end up turning away from ideas presented under the banner of design thinking, and instead pursue more opportune and tangible strategies.

This talk is the first time I have heard design thinking directly critiqued, and it is the first time I have felt invited in to be a part of the group that defines what it is.

This is so commercial motto. İt's like designing for Millenials (furniture design) or Big Data maybe innovation. But actually shows the way the people out of the design world (all kinds of designers, firms...)